During their recent stop in New York City, Axwell Λ Ingrosso sat down for a prolonged interview to talk about the meditative effects of the creative process, their artistic inspirations, a long overdue debut album, the discovery of the Axwell Λ Ingrosso sound & much more.
They start off the 30-minute interview with a “choreographed” entrance, poking fun at their highly choreographed performances which have been a topic of discussion in the past. Giving the interview a light-hearted feel from inception, Axwell – the spokesman – moves on to discuss how their new sound and inevitable debut album really weren’t planned, despite it fitting together so cohesively.
The famed house artists then talk about their return to Ultra Music Festival in Miami two years after Swedish House Mafia’s grand finale, as well as the pressure of their triumphant return. Axwell Λ Ingrosso also stress the importance of the visual coordination with the music to reinforce the performance. As they say, “once you experience the coordination of lights and music, you don’t want to experience it out of sync again.” 
The really interesting part of this interview comes when Axwell Λ Ingrosso discuss the production process, who their influences are, and what their plans are for the future. They begin by imparting just how hard it is to talk about the creative process, comparing the time spent composing and producing to a state of meditation – a place where you lose track of both time and conscious thought.
Regarding the new album, Axwell Λ Ingrosso mention two Swedish singer/songwriters who they worked with thoroughly, Salem Al Fakir and Vincent Pontare. The pair, who performed live with them at Coachella, sing in unison on “On My Way” and Vincent sings solo on “Something New.” They also mention working with Pusha T and several secret collaborators on their upcoming album, which promises to be diverse yet unified.
In regards to inspirations they state:
“We’ve always been huge fans of Daft Punk…they play a big part of our history…Coldplay has always been a big influence to us, and also for technique, there’s nobody with the technique that Skrillex has…he’s very inspiring.”
Their battle in production and its translation to the ever-profitable live performance is to combine both the diversity of good “listening” music, which is timeless, and what will work well on the dance floor. In fact, Axwell Λ Ingrosso point to Kygo‘s recent success and how the acceptance of the “softer side of electronic music” has opened up new avenues for their own productions.
Check out the full interview below and their incredible live performance at Coachella, here – which was better even than their Ultra 2015 performance.
Photo by Rukes
